Gene Hackman said he was keen to play the male lead in the 1971 thriller *Klute*, but claimed that co-star Jane Fonda vetoed his casting. The role ultimately went to Donald Sutherland, while Fonda won an Academy Award for her performance, making the decision a notable early-career disappointment for Hackman.

*Klute*, directed by Alan J. Pakula, follows a detective investigating the disappearance of a businessman and his connection to a New York sex worker. Hackman later achieved major success in 1971 with *The French Connection*, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar, but he described missing *Klute* as a role he “wanted desperately”.